


Who’s Your Daddy?

by fiona_cat2004



Series: Family Is More Than Blood [5]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Fluff, Gender Roles, M/M, Pregnancy, Reproductive Technology, Unconventional Families
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-16
Updated: 2020-04-16
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:22:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23676073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fiona_cat2004/pseuds/fiona_cat2004
Summary: Poe and Finn are offered an opportunity they never thought they would have. Are they ready to have a baby?
Relationships: Poe Dameron/Finn
Series: Family Is More Than Blood [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1656739
Comments: 6
Kudos: 33





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I recently read “She Has Her Mother’s Laugh” by Carl Zimmer and one of the later chapters refers to in vitro gametogenesis. And I started thinking ... if cloning is a common science in the Star Wars universe, why not this? 
> 
> in vitro gametogenesis = the process by which somatic cells can be converted to germ cells and used to conceive an embryo; i.e. skin cells can be transformed into eggs or sperm

Poe Dameron was at a loss for words. Which was a very unusual occurrence, he had to admit. The private communication he’d just received was simultaneously exciting and frightening as hell. It would take him a while to process it and figure out if he wanted to share it with his husband, Finn, and if so, how to bring it up.

It had started innocently enough, with a routine diplomatic trip to Trelor, a little known world on the Outer Rim that wanted to join the Republic but wanted to do so as an ally of the Resistance. Trelor had been persecuted by the First Order and while the advantages of membership in the Galactic Republic were many, the Trelorians still had a bitter taste in their mouths over the way the Republic had ignored the First Order’s incursions. It made perfect sense that they wanted the Resistance behind them as they petitioned for a place in the Senate. Just in case.

So, Poe and Finn Dameron had gone to Trelor, wined and dined with the President and the Parliament, and hammered out a deal whereby the prospective Trelorian Senator would approach the Republican Senate with a treaty of alliance with the Resistance forces in his back pocket. 

Trelor was a beautiful planet, with a variety of climate zones and many natural wonders. They’d been shown a spectacular waterfall, a jungle full of brilliantly colored birds and insects, vast plains inhabited by fierce horned herbivores and magnificently maned feline predators, and clear oceans swarming with strange and delightful invertebrate life. True, these were mere remnants of the glory that had been Trelor before the arrival of the First Order, but it was still impressive that the Trelorians had been able to preserve as much as they had.

The other impressive thing about the Trelorians was that their entire species was genderless. It hadn’t started out that way; they had evolved like most species but at some point in the past, males had become increasingly rare. At first, the species had seemed doomed, but then a genetic mutation had arisen that enabled the remaining females to reproduce by parthenogenesis. A few males remained, injecting their genetic material into the species now and then, but for the most part, the gene pool had stagnated as only the occasional mutation arose from genetic transcription errors.

Then the Trelorian scientists had developed techniques of in vitro gametogenesis, which allowed individuals of different genetic lines to combine their DNA even if they were the same gender. And eventually, gender became meaningless to the Trelorians, as parenthood no longer depended on finding a partner of the opposite sex. Physical gender differences faded away.

Which meant the Trelorians were simultaneously fascinated by the genders of humans and completely accepting of the Damerons marriage. This had not been the case on all worlds they’d dealt with, and had even led to a very nasty attack on the Resistance base by a planet whose leader had taken personal affront to their “perverted” lifestyle.

All of this led to the communication on Poe’s data pad, from a highly respected Trelorian physician, offering their services in assisting the Damerons in reproducing. It wasn’t that Poe didn’t want kids; he loved kids, and so did Finn. He just never had the time to stop and think about it. For years, the priority had been sheer survival, and quite frankly, it wouldn’t have been fair to even think of bringing a child into that kind of environment. He’d assumed that when the time came, he and Finn would adopt. Stars knew there were enough orphans out there in the galaxy who needed loving homes. Rey and Finn had been orphans, and it still pained Poe when he thought of how they had never had the chance to just be a kid, like he had.

Now, there was another possibility. A child that was part him, part Finn. Poe put down the data pad and closed his eyes. Finn would be back from his meeting in a few minutes, and he needed to decide when and how to broach the subject.

**********************************  
Finn wanted nothing more than a cold drink and a back rub from Poe after another incredibly frustrating meeting with the Council of Former Troopers. Most of the defecting stormtroopers had quietly integrated into the Resistance or returned to their home planets, but there was a group who weren’t quite ready to let go of the idea that they were something special. These former troopers demanded to be treated as elite fighters, more like mercenaries than freedom fighters, and it was a constant struggle to keep them on the side of the Resistance rather than offering their services to the highest bidder. Finn tried to appeal to their sense of gratitude, their sense of right and wrong, but many of them were cynical enough to have chosen the Resistance as the option most likely to keep them alive, not the one that was objectively the best.

He entered their quarters and flopped down on the couch. Poe came out of the kitchen, a glass in each hand. “Bad day?,” he asked.

Finn groaned. “They just won’t listen,” he said, sitting halfway up and taking one of the glasses from Poe. It was Karelian ale, his favorite, and he took a long drink. “Thanks, babe. I needed that.” He rolled his shoulders in an attempt to loosen the tightness that had settled between them; without a word, Poe sat down his own drink and settled behind him, gently kneading the sore muscles. Finn let his head drop forward. “Force, that feels good,” he mumbled as Poe found a particularly hard knot and focused his attention on it.

“After we eat, I have something to talk to you about,” Poe murmured in his ear. Finn caught a note of apprehension in his husband’s voice, but it was slight and he let it go for the moment. Right now, he just wanted to let the ale and Poe’s fingers work their magic.

**************************************

“Kids?” Finn asked, as they were washing up the dishes after dinner. “Yeah, I guess I want kids. Someday.” He draped the damp cloth over the side of the sink to dry. “Where is this coming from?”

Poe leaned against the counter. “Just … thinking.”

Finn narrowed his eyes. “Something got you thinking,” he said, taking Poe’s hand. “Tell me.”

Poe squeezed Finn’s hand and led him into the living room, where he picked up his data pad. “I got this today,” he said, opening the comm panel and handing the pad to Finn. “From Doctor Krklsk on Trelor.”

Finn took the pad and read the message. “Wait, what?,” he said when he was finished. “Does this mean what I think it means? They want to help us have a baby?”

Poe nodded. “If we want one,” he said. “I know it’s not the ideal time to be thinking about something like this —“

“Yes,” Finn interrupted him. “Yes, I do. Want one. A baby. With you.” He blushed. “Is that weird?”

“No!” Poe said. “It’s not weird. I want one, too. I mean, I figured someday we’d adopt but …”

Finn grabbed his hand. “But this would be our kid. Like really ours.” He pulled Poe closer. “Oh, man, can you imagine how adorable our kid will be?” He laughed, and Poe kissed him.

“Not sure if the galaxy can handle that level of cuteness,” he murmured. “So, we’re doing this?” He pulled back to look into Finn’s beautiful, dark eyes.

“Yeah,” Finn said. “We’re doing this. But first, we’re doing this.” He wrapped his arms around Poe and walked him backwards into the bedroom.

**************************************  
“How exactly does this work?” Rey asked when Finn told her he and Poe were going to have a baby. “I mean, you’re both male and ….”

Finn pulled out his data pad and opened a holovid Dr. Krklsk had sent him. “It’s way beyond my level of scientific knowledge, but basically, they take a somatic cell — a skin cell, or something like that — and turn it into a germ cell — an egg or a sperm. They take one from me and one from Poe, make an egg and a sperm, put them together and wait for the sperm to fertilize the egg. Then they put the zygote into a special growth chamber and let it develop into a fetus. Grow it for the right amount of time and — baby.”

Rey watched the vid, nodding now and then. “Okay, it makes sense,” she said when it was finished. “But how do they determine which one of you donates the egg and which one the sperm? I mean, if they make an egg from your DNA, does that make you the mother? Or are you both the father?”

Finn shrugged. “I never thought about that. I kind of assumed we’d both be the father, but yeah, I guess maybe one of us would technically be the mother. If you define mother as the one who provides the egg. But the word mother implies femaleness ….” He shook his head and blew out a breath. “Is this one of your Jedi riddles that I’m supposed to meditate on?”

“I don’t think so,” Rey said, frowning. “But I do think you and Poe should discuss it before you move forward.” She smiled. “I kind of like the idea of a kid running around calling Poe ‘Mommy,’ though, don’t you?” He shoved her off her chair. Her Jedi reflexes were good, but his were developing quite nicely as well.

*****************************************  
Dr. Krklsk was puzzled. “We simply call both parents ‘parents’,” they admitted. “We don’t distinguish between the donor of the genetic material in the egg and the genetic material in the sperm. In fact, the only reason we even use those cellular forms is because they work so well. If they hadn’t evolved to fill those roles, we could probably combine the DNA in other ways, but why reinvent the wheel?”

Poe nodded. “Okay, we were just wondering. This is new to us. Our species still reproduces the old fashioned way, for the most part.” As soon as Finn had brought Rey’s question up, he’d been turning it over and over in his head. On the face of it, it really shouldn’t matter _how_ the Trelorian doctors combined their DNA, as long as it worked. Human nature being what it was, though, he found the idea of being a father much easier to accept than that of being a mother.

“How about this?” Finn said. “What if you make one of each? From each of us. Two babies. One from my egg, one from Poe’s. And don’t tell us which one is which.”

“Twins?” Poe asked. “Seriously, babe, you want to have _twins_?”

“Why not?” Finn asked, innocently.

Poe shook his head. “Two babies,” he said. “At the same time.”

Finn nodded.

“Two babies,” Poe went on. “Needing to be fed. And have their diapers changed. And teething. And … everything. _At the same time_.”

“Oh,” Finn said with a frown. “I see what you mean.”

Dr. Krklsk chuckled. “Silly humans, you are making this much more complicated than necessary,” they said. “We can do as Finn suggests, create two embryos, and save one for later. Our technology is capable of keeping an embryo in stasis for several years with absolutely no ill effects. You can have one child now and another later. The timing is entirely up to you.”

***************************  
It took a while to find a slot in their schedule when both Generals could go back to Trelor. When they finally found a time, they had to reschedule because Dr. Kalonia insisted on going with them. “I want to see what kind of medical technology they have,” she said. “We can always use new genetic therapy techniques. And since I’m the closest thing to a family doctor you have, I’m going to end up being your pediatrician, so the sooner I get acquainted with your child, the better.” So they rescheduled until all three of them were free to travel.

They arrived on Trelor late on a summer day, when the sunset lingered over the hills and lit up the sky in oranges and yellows that drenched the world in gold. While Finn and Poe settled into their guest room, Dr. Kalonia headed straight to the clinic to confer with Dr. Krklsk.

The next morning, Kalonia joined them for breakfast on the terrace. “You should be glad I insisted on coming,” she told them, a pastry in one hand and a cup of steaming kaf in the other. “These people are brilliant, but they aren’t as familiar with human physiology as I am.” She smiled. “I pointed out that they don’t need to create sperm cells; you are both quite capable of producing them yourselves.”

Poe nearly choked on his kaf, while Finn patted him on the back. “Easy there,” he said. “So what does that mean, exactly?,” he asked Kalonia.

She took a big bite, chewed carefully, and swallowed. “It means, all they need to do is create the ovum and then we can use normal human in vitro fertilization protocols. Basically, stick the egg in the right medium, dump some sperm in and let nature take its course. It’s much more random and, dare I say, natural.” She took a swig of kaf. “Heck, if you had a surrogate lined up, I could do the whole thing, once they create the egg.”

“Um, that’s okay,” Finn said. “I think we’ll go with the Trelorian growth chamber.”

“Yeah,” said Poe, now that he could breathe properly again. “But thanks anyway.”

Kalonia shrugged and helped herself to another pastry.

*********************************  
Poe hated medical bays, but this one was much less sterile and mechanical than the ones he was used to from serving in the Navy and Resistance. For one thing, all the furniture was plush and covered in soothing colors. The Trelorian med staff were soft spoken and smiling as they extracted a small patch of skin cells from the inside of his arm, and even softer spoken as they directed him into a private chamber with a specimen cup. He knew that Finn was undergoing the same process across the hallway, and he wondered if he felt as awkward as he did, walking out with the lid screwed on the cup. The med staff were amazed at the human ability to create germ cells without assistance, which had led to some very personal questions that made Poe blush like he hadn’t since he was a teenager.

When it was over, and they had reunited in the waiting room, Poe leaned over and whispered in Finn’s ear, “I feel violated.”

“Same,” Finn whispered back. “But don’t worry; I’ll violate you later so you can block it out.”

“Only if you let me violate you, too,” Poe replied.

They were interrupted by Dr. Krklsk, who bustled into the waiting room. “Congratulations, Generals,” they said. “We have successfully created several germ cells from the DNA extracted from your somatic cells, and we will shortly introduce them to germ cells you created yourselves.” They chuckled. “I’m afraid some of the younger med staff are making bets on which sperm will ‘get the job done.’ It’s very valuable experience for them to see what fertilization was like for our distant ancestors.”

“Just shoot me now,” Poe said, feeling his blush return.

“Um, Dr. Krklsk,” Finn said awkwardly. “How soon will we know …”

“If conception has taken place?” Krklsk said. “By tomorrow, we should have viable zygotes and then we can choose which one to move forward with and which one to put into stasis. Have you given thought to how to make the decision?”

“Flip a coin?” Poe said. “Heads for container number one, tails for container number two?”

Krklsk clapped their hands. “Perfect! Yet another level of randomness to imitate the natural human reproductive process. So, until tomorrow then?” They offered their hand, shook with both of them and scurried off.

Finn looked sideways at Poe. “Well, while our cells are mingling in the lab, what say we do some mingling of our own?,” he suggested.

“Anything to get the memory of that specimen cup out of my head,” Poe said. 

************************************************  
They returned to the clinic the next day, flipped a commemorative coin that Krklsk found in their desk, and watched anxiously as one of the fertilized eggs was placed carefully in a growth chamber. 

“And now we wait,” Krklsk said. “We will monitor the progress of the fetus and send you weekly updates. I believe the human gestation period is roughly nine standard months; once we get within a month or so of that date, we’ll start sending daily updates.”

“That’s it?” Poe asked. “We’re pregnant?”

Krklsk laughed. “Such a quaint term! Yes, you are indeed ‘pregnant,’ Generals. Congratulations.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There’s a new Dameron in the galaxy.

“Sorry, Ambassador,” Poe said. The holo stuttered and wavered, but he could tell the ambassador was not amused. “We can’t schedule anything that week. Second General Dameron and I will be on Trelor.” The ambassador opened her mouth, but Poe raised his hand. “Not negotiable. You can talk to Lieutenant Connix to reschedule.”

He terminated the comm and sat back. In one week’s time, he and Finn would be traveling to Trelor for the birth of their child. It had been a strange few months, to say the least. There had been jokes about Finn having strange food cravings (which was silly, because the man would eat just about anything at any time, and anyway Rey was the one who ate weird combinations of food). Poe had put on a couple of pounds now that he spent most of his time behind a desk instead of in a cockpit, and there had been jokes about his ‘baby bump.’ There had been a baby shower, coordinated by none other than Chewbacca, and somehow they had ended up with thirty-six crocheted blankets. Kes was over the moons about being a grandfather, and commed them at least once a day with some new nugget of parenting wisdom he’d discovered.

Finn took it all in stride, although he had admitted to Poe a few times that he’d had the odd nightmare about putting the baby down somewhere and not being able to remember where it was. Mostly, though, he was just excited about the prospect of belonging to what he called a “real family,” at being physically related to someone. 

His office door chimed, and Poe said, “Come in.” Rey walked in, eating a blue apple-like fruit she’d taken a shine to after the latest food shipment had come in.

“Getting excited?,” she asked, grinning devilishly.

“Scared is more like it,” he admitted. “Being responsible for the people under my command is one thing, but to be responsible for a tiny person … maybe I’m not ready for this.”

“That’s why you have Finn,” she said. “You couldn’t general on your own, and you can’t parent on your own. But together … you two can do anything.” She laid her hand on his shoulder and squeezed. He reached up and laid his hand over hers. 

“Thanks, Rey,” he said. “Or should I start calling you Auntie Rey?”

She made a face. “That makes me sound like an old woman who makes lace tablecloths. How about Aunt Badass Jedi Master?”

“Works for me, but I don’t know if Finn will let you say that in front of the kid,” he laughed.

Rey plopped into the empty chair next to his desk. “Have you figured out what you want the kid to call you?” There had been several discussions about the merits of various names. “Father” was too formal, so the consensus was that one of them should be Dad (or Daddy) and the other Papa. Connix had been very firm in asserting that they could _not_ both be Dad, because that would just be repeating the whole two-General-Damerons nightmare. 

“Not yet,” Poe said. “I really think Finn has his heart set on being called Dad, but I think Papa Poe sounds kind of ridiculous, don’t you?”

Rey tilted her head. “Kind of suits you, actually,” she teased. He swatted at her, but with her Jedi reflexes she easily dodged him. 

“Whatever you say, Auntie Rey,” he said.

*****************************************  
“Do we have everything?” Finn asked. He knew he’d asked the question several times already, but he was nervous.

“Yes,” Rey assured him. “Poe checked it against your list, then Kes double checked it, Chewie checked it, BB-8 checked it, and Doctor Kalonia checked it.” She patted his arm. “The only reason I didn’t check it is because I figured five times was enough. Now go sit down and let me and Chewie take it from here.”

She pushed him into a seat at the holochess table before joining the Wookiee in the cockpit. Poe and Kes were setting up one of the cabins as a makeshift nursery and BB-8 was bustling around checking for any loose parts that could conceivably hurt a baby, even though Doctor Kalonia had assured the droid that it was far too early to be baby proofing since the child wouldn’t be able to crawl, let alone walk, for several months. The good doctor herself was locked in her cabin, going over the latest reports from Doctor Krklsk.

Finn sat still for all of thirty seconds before he was back on his feet. He knew better than to bother Rey and Chewie while they were engaged in preflight checks, so he drifted to the cabin area.

“Are you as excited as I am?,” he heard Kes ask.

“I don’t think that’s possible, Dad,” Poe replied, “but I’m close.”

Kes chuckled. “Sorry, I know this is about you and Finn, but … I never thought I’d get to be a grandfather.” Kes cleared his throat and Finn froze. “Your mom and I … we wanted another baby, but it didn’t work out. You probably don’t remember, but when you were about four, she got pregnant again but we lost the baby.”

Finn felt tears in his eyes. He wasn’t sure whether to turn around and give them their privacy or rush in and hug them both, so he ended up standing awkwardly in the passageway feeling like a jerk for eavesdropping on his husband and father-in-law.

“I remember … something,” Poe said. “I remember you two being really sad for a while.”

“We were,” Kes admitted, “but we had you, and that helped. Then after your mom died….” He sighed. “I hoped you might get married and give me a grandchild someday, but when you reached a certain age and I realized which way the tree was leaning — I gave up on that dream. Now, don’t get me wrong, if you and Finn had adopted kids I would love them just as much as if they were my biological grandchildren, but … I want to see some spark of your mother carry on in the galaxy. Knowing that this child will have a little bit of her in it ….” The rest was muffled; clearly Poe had wrapped his father in an embrace. 

Finn backed up, almost tripping over BB-8. “Shh, BB,” he whispered, shooing the droid back down the passageway. “Poe and Dad need some time alone right now.”

***************************  
Doctor Krklsk greeted them at the entrance to the clinic. “Welcome, Generals,” they said warmly. “Are you ready to meet your child?”

Poe clutched at Finn’s hand. He was still emotional from his conversation with his father earlier on the _Falcon_ , so he simply nodded. Finn did the same.

“Then let’s go,” Krklsk said. “You can introduce me to your friends as we walk.”

They reached a quiet room filled with soft couches and cheerful abstract paintings on the wall. “The antechamber,” Krklsk said. “I am afraid only the parents and medical personnel are allowed into the birthing chamber itself.” They opened the door on the far wall and stepped aside, to let Poe, Finn and Doctor Kalonia enter first.

The birthing chamber was just a lab, sterile and white, with a large cream colored pod in the center. An attendant in a pale blue jumpsuit was fiddling with a panel full of dials and screens and toggle switches. At a nod from Doctor Krklsk, they pressed a large green button and stepped back. The pod shivered just a bit and then cracked open along a previously invisible seam.

Krklsk stepped forward and reached inside the now opened pod. They lifted out a tiny creature and wrapped it gently in the pale yellow cloth the attendant held out. Poe was shaking as Krklsk turned to face them. “And here they are,” they said, as the child gave a thin, angry cry. “Ah, they are always unhappy to leave the warmth and security of the pod, but they will soon adjust.” They jiggled the baby up and down a bit to soothe it. “Who wants to hold them first?”

Finn looked at Poe, and Poe nodded at him. He was still shaking a bit, and Finn looked so calm — _probably some Jedi trick Rey taught him_ , Poe thought. So Finn reached out and gently took the baby into his arms. 

“Wow,” he whispered, barely audible. Poe stepped closer so he could see the baby’s face. “Um,” Finn said after a moment, “is it a boy or a girl?”

Krklsk frowned. “I don’t know,” they said. “I didn’t think to check.”

Doctor Kalonia huffed and stepped forward, flicking open the blanket and running a scanner quickly over the little body. “Girl,” she said. “A fine, healthy little girl.”

Finn’s face lit up with the biggest smile Poe had ever seen. “A daughter, Poe,” he said with wonder. “We have a daughter.”

“Yeah,” Poe said softly, reaching out to trace his finger along his daughter’s velvet soft cheek. Her skin tone was a bit lighter than Finn’s but still quite a bit darker than his own. And the hair! Thick, curly black hair enveloped her head like a cloud. “She’s beautiful.”

“Let’s go introduce her to the others,” Finn said. “Here, you take her. I’m afraid I’ll drop her.” He held the baby out and Poe carefully cradled her in his arms. He was still a little shaky, but he held her close. “Let’s go meet grandpa, Shara,” Finn said. 

Poe froze. “Shara? Are you sure?” His voice was thick with emotion as he held back tears. 

“Yeah,” Finn murmured. “As soon as I saw her, I knew it was her name.” 

Poe cleared his throat, took a deep breath, and nodded. “Okay, let’s do this.” He shifted Shara in his arms and she fussed a bit. “Shh, it’s okay, sweetheart, Papa’s got you.” He looked up at Finn. “Come on, Daddy, open the door so this princess can meet her family.”

**********************  
Kes started crying when he heard that his granddaughter had been named after her grandmother. Then Chewie started crying because, well, because he was a big softie. Rey held out as long as she could, but when she caught Finn’s eye at one point and felt the immense wave of love that radiated from him, she started sniffling herself. Only BB-8 and Doctor Kalonia were dry eyed, and that was only because BB didn’t actually have eyes; if it had, it would have been crying, too.

All too soon, it was time to get back aboard the Falcon and head home. The Trelorian staff all came to say goodbye to the child they’d so carefully monitored over the previous months, and Doctor Krklsk bade them a final farewell at the door of the clinic. “Remember, when you’re ready for her sibling to join the family, just let us know,” they said.

Shara slept most of the way back to base, after being appeased by a bottle of formula, even though she never spent a moment in her makeshift nursery, being shifted from Poe’s arms to Finn’s to Kes’s to Chewie’s to Rey’s and then quickly back to Poe’s when it became apparent she needed a diaper change. “I don’t do diapers,” the Jedi told him as she handed the baby over to him. “Not in my job description.”

Finn raised his hands. “Hey, you have more experience at this than I do,” he told Poe. It was true; as a child, Poe had helped the neighbors out by babysitting a few times. 

“You’ve got to learn sometime, Daddy,” Poe retorted.

Kes rolled his eyes. “Oh, please,” he said, swooping in and taking his granddaughter into the nursery cabin. “I’ll do the honors this time, but you both better pay close attention.” Poe and Finn dutifully followed him and watched as he expertly cleaned, powdered and diapered their daughter. 

“That’s disgusting,” Finn whispered to Poe. “I am _so_ glad you talked me out of the twins thing.”

“Told you,” Poe said.

************************************  
The entire base was enamored of little Shara Dameron. Everyone wanted to hold her, play with her, tickle her, and tie silly little bows in her hair. She traveled around the base in a sling held close against one of her fathers’ chests. The only person who attended more meetings than she did was Lieutenant Connix. All who met her marveled at her ability to sleep through just about anything — except the night.

Poe and Finn were exhausted. Shara was a perfect darling all day, sleeping and cooing and basically charming the pants off of everyone, but as soon as they got home and tried to go to bed, she fussed, she cried, she colicked. BB-8 asked for its charging station to be moved out of their quarters and into the hangar with the rest of the astromech units. 

“Who knew she was nocturnal?” Finn said wearily one night as he crawled out of bed to see what Her Majesty wanted this time. He had teased Poe about calling her a princess on the day she was born, saying he’d given her ideas, and the nickname had stuck. Poe insisted that Leia was getting revenge on him for years of insubordination by haunting his daughter every night, but Finn had not felt even the slightest hint of Leia’s presence, nor had Rey.

Poe grunted and rolled over, pulling the pillow over his head. He’d gotten up with Shara the last time, just an hour ago, and he was scrupulous about them taking turns getting up with her. Finn shuffled across the room and bent over the cradle. Shara scrunched up her face and shook her little fists at him. “What is it, baby girl?,” he asked. “Papa just changed you and it’s not time for your next feeding.” He lifted her into his arms and jiggled her until she stopped fussing. He paced the room, humming to her, until she drifted off to sleep. As soon as he started to place her back in the cradle, though, her eyes popped back open. Finn sighed and kept walking.

“Hey,” Poe said sleepily from underneath the pillow. “I think I figured it out. She’s so used to being held all the time; she doesn’t like being alone. Bring her to bed.”

“But we’ll squish her,” Finn protested. Shara had a powerful set of lungs, but she was still a very small person.

“No, we won’t,” Poe said. “It’s an instinct or something; Dad was telling me about it one time. It’s called co-sleeping.”

“Well, we’re good at co-everything,” Finn admitted. He laid Shara down on the mattress next to Poe and then slid carefully into bed next to her. She fussed for a moment, then realized she had her Papa _and_ her Daddy beside her. With an adorable sigh, she snuggled against Finn’s chest and fell into a deep sleep. “I’ll be damned,” he said. “You were right.”

“I’ve been known to be right from time to time,” Poe muttered. “I married you, didn’t I?” Before Finn could reply, Poe went on. “Now shut up and let me sleep.” 

Finn kicked him lightly in the shin, but Poe didn’t react. A moment later, he was snoring. It didn’t take Finn long to follow his daughter and husband’s lead.

*******************  
Poe thanked Rey for the cup of kaf she dropped off on her way out to her training course. Shara had woken him up an hour before dawn, wanting a bottle, and he’d decided there was no point in trying to go back to sleep at that point, and even less point in waking up Finn, so he’d bundled her into her sling and taken her to his office to get a head start on the day’s work.

“You looked like you needed it,” Rey said. 

Poe yawned. “Yeah, well, Her Majesty wanted an early breakfast and I figured as long as I was already up ….” He gestured at the paperwork scattered over his desk. 

“You know you guys don’t have to do this entirely alone,” she said. “Kes isn’t going anywhere for a while, and Rose and Chewie and I are more than willing to babysit if you need us.”

“I know,” Poe said, peering down at Shara’s sleeping face. “It’s just ….”

“Yeah, I know,” Rey said. “Or rather, I don’t know, but I can imagine.” She had a wistful look on her face. “I can feel your love for her in the Force,” she said quietly. “You and Finn both kind of _glow_ when you’re around her.”

“That’s fatigue,” Poe joked. “But I think we’ve solved the problem of her sleepless nights. Finn brought her into bed with us last night after about the third time she woke us up and she slept through until she woke me up for breakfast. Fingers crossed it keeps working.” He yawned again.

“Hmm,” Rey said. “Sounds like that might put a bit of a crimp in your love life. What’s Finn going to think about that?”

Poe made a face. “Being absolutely exhausted all the time puts an even bigger crimp in our love life,” he replied. “Besides, that’s what babysitters are for, right?” He winked at her and Rey made a gagging face.

“Ugh, I don’t want to think about it,” she said. “I’m going to go run the course. Tell Finn he’d better not skip our meditation session this afternoon.”

“I will,” Poe said. “Unless I need a nap. Then he’s on Shara duty. Sorry, but Her Majesty takes precedence over Jedi Masters. You know that.”

“Yeah, I do,” Rey said, leaning over to brush Shara’s hair back from her forehead. 

“Say bye-bye to Auntie Rey,” Poe said, just to get Rey to make that face again. 

“Bye-bye, Papa Poe,” she shot back as she left the room.

“Ah, she’s just jealous because everyone likes you better,” Poe whispered to Shara. She opened her eyes briefly and stared blearily up at him. And then — he swore up and down to Finn later that he hadn’t dreamt it — she winked.


End file.
